The present invention is generally related to data communication, and, more particularly, to an asymmetric-rate communication method and system for remote data collection using a processor-operated modem at a respective data collection site.
In various remote data collection situations, such as meter data reading or collecting diagnostic data of a respective machine or appliance, over phone lines using a modem, it is usually required to receive much more data from the data collection site, such as may be collected from a respective meter or respective machine, than it is transmitted to the machine or the meter. A common problem encountered with presently commercially available modems is that such modems expend almost twice the computational power of their respective digital signal processor (DSP), as may be generally indicated by the number of million of instructions per second (MIPS) that the processor is rated to execute, in receiving data than they do in transmitting the collected data. Thus, it would be desired to correct this waste of DSP processing power by receiving data at a relatively slow rate compared to the rates for transmitting the data. Although there are modem protocols or standards that support asymmetrical transmission (e.g. the ITU v.34 telecommunication standard), presently existing protocols are believed to only allow for asymmetry in the transmit/receive rates within a given protocol and, unfortunately, they do not allow for mixing distinct protocols, such as would be needed for efficient utilization of the DSP processing power. The above result is not surprising since such known protocols that may support asymmetric rates are not designed for optimizing DSP processing power and, consequently, there is little benefit, at least from the MIPS utilization standpoint, to use the presently existing asymmetric protocols to conserve processing power of the DSP. Thus, it is desirable to provide an asymmetric-rate communication method and system that is able to be adapted to make efficient use of DSP processing power based on the characteristics of the remote data collection, such as may be encountered in collecting meter data, e.g., data measuring electric power consumption or water consumption, etc., or in collecting diagnostic data from machines that may be remotely located relative to one another and to a remote service center where the meter data and/or diagnostic data may be further processed.
Generally speaking the present invention fulfills the foregoing needs by providing an asymmetric-rate communication method for remote data collection using a processor-operated modem at a respective data collection site. The modem processor used at the data collection site may be rated to have a predetermined relatively low processing power. The method includes the following steps:
selecting a first protocol for transmitting data at a predetermined rate, the selected first protocol using a predetermined percentage of the processing power of the processor;
selecting a second protocol for receiving data at another predetermined rate, the selected second protocol using another predetermined percentage of the processing power of the processor; and
selecting the percentage of processing power used for receiving data to be sufficiently low relative to the percentage of processing power used for transmitting data so that the combined transmitting and receiving processing requirements are kept within the rated processing power of the processor.
The present invention further fulfills the foregoing needs by providing a modem communication system configured to provide asymmetric-rate communication for remote data collection. The system includes a modem at each of a respective plurality of data collection sites. Each modem at each of the respective data collection sites using a respective processor rated to have a predetermined processing power. The system further includes a modem at a remote service center using a respective processor rated to have another predetermined processing power. The remote service center modem may be coupled to communicate with each modem at the respective plurality of data collection sites. The processing power of the processor modem at the data collection site may have a relatively low processing power relative to the processing power of the processor modem at the service center. The respective modem processor for each data collection site in turn includes a first processor module configured to use a first protocol for transmitting data at a predetermined rate. The first processor module uses a predetermined percentage of the processing power of the processor modem at the data collection site. The modem processor at the data collection site further includes a second processor module configured to use a second protocol for receiving data at another predetermined rate. The second processor module uses another predetermined percentage of the processing power of the processor modem at the data collection site wherein the percentage of processing power used for receiving data is chosen to be sufficiently low relative to the percentage of processing power used for transmitting data so that the combined transmitting and receiving processing requirements of the modem processor at the data collection site may be kept within its relatively low processing power.